I am still struggling away with transcribing Theodoret’s Commentary on Romans. 15 pages to go.
When I have it done, I will collect the bits of the Life of Mar Aba, write a preface and upload them as a whole. It would be useful to know what the manuscript tradition is for the work.
I have also been playing with the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) website. An article on a forum asserted that some words from the Testimonium Flavianum must be Eusebian, because the TLG only returns 4 results for it, 1 from Josephus and 3 from Eusebius. So it does, but it can’t mean what the author supposed, once you look at the results. So I need to write a blog post on this; because, while databases are wonderful, they can mislead badly if used without thought.
I’m off to South Wales for a day or two soon. I wonder if there is anything Roman to see? If the rain stops, that is!
Looks like there’s Caerleon and the Roman Legion Museum, several places with old Roman forts, and Roman roads like Sarn Helen. And of course tons of post-Roman patristic Welsh saints have sites around, although how much is left of them is between you, Baring-Gould, and today’s guidebooks.
There’s quite a reasonable Wikipedia article, ‘Wales in the Roman Era’, which might give you some hints. I remember admiring the remains of a Roman amphitheatre once on a sodden Welsh hillside in the pouring rain, my shoes covered in sheepshit, and wondering why on earth the Romans ever bothered to extend their mission civilisatrice to such a God-forsaken country. 🙂
Thank you both.
The question of why on earth the Romans occupied Wales is one that must have occupied the mind of many a legionary in its time. 🙂